My Roman Crucifixion (Part 1) - Broken, Nailed, and Displayed

The Crucifixion 

Broken, Nailed, and Displayed

They laid me flat. Right at the front and centre of the row of upright poles, at a major junction between two roads - special treatment for the girl rapist and magistrate thief.

I remember the sky above me - bright, blinding. I think it was just past midday, it had all started at sunrise. The sun made my blood steam on the wood. I could hear the crowd moving, pressing closer to the execution site on the hill to get a better view of the most exciting part. Many faces looking down on me, studying my body, awaiting the next stage with passive excitement. 

The guards barked to hold them back.

And then they spread my arms.

My wrists, flayed and raw from the scourging and ropes, were yanked outward and pressed down against the patibulum. The soldier didn’t hesitate. He drove his knee onto my forearm to hold it still. I tried to resist - a twitch, a pull - but I had no strength left.

The first nail was cold against the bone.

I felt it press, then pierce; skin, tendon, then the bone itself. 

It didn’t just hurt. It screamed through my entire body. I arched off the wood in shock. 

My legs spasmed. My mouth opened but made no sound.

My legs thrashed around involuntarily, I urinated myself, and felt it splash from left to right as my whole body twisted and turned. 

The solder was splashed, when it stopped he leaned down and slapped my manhood roughly. I heard a women in the crowd say “is that a penis or a woman’s privates, it’s so small”. 

Others close by laughed loudly. 

The soldier hammered again.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Each strike felt like an explosion inside my skull. My head thrashed about, I hit it on the wood many times and felt dizzy from the abuse. My whole body twisted, as if in reflex, as if I was trying to escape, to move the pain from my arm to other less damaged areas. 

My knees bashed the earth, picking up more dust and dirt. After about four strikes the nail was home. 

I took a breath and opened my eyes. The sky was red, but all around me faces, eyes wide open watching me, some smiling, some laughing and some talking to their friends. 

When the nail was buried, he moved to the other arm. I sobbed openly now. I begged the gods. I begged even the Romans. I’d have kissed the soldier’s boots if it stopped the pain.

But they just grinned and did the same to the other arm.

“His screams are like music to my ears”, said a bystander, a responder said “the crescendo of different tones and sounds from the throat, from the gut and still deeper, it’s beautiful”.

The nails bound me in place, but more than that, they claimed me. The wood beneath me was soaked already in the fluids of other men. Now it drank mine too.

There was laughter, one person said “it’s useless now, he’ll never have children”, whilst another answered “he’d never have children anyway with that small thing, what sane woman would want that in them”. “He’s bald, and has a tiny roundhead worm”. 

“How could he have raped a girl with that thing” said a man in the crowd, followed by “he only likes small girls”. A few spat in my face. 

“Sucking his nipples may arouse his little member”, “oh no, it won’t work, his left nipple is gone”, came another comment. 

The ropes still bound my arms, with the nails, to the cross arm. My stomach was retching as they pulled me to my feet, the pain was so immense. Nothing came out from me except stinging sour bile. 

The crowd came closer, wanting to see me lifted, displayed in a grotesque manner, for maximum mocking potential. I could see them watching, near silent to see my full immobility.

There were small stands either side of the upright pole that two guards used to lift me up. They pulled me backwards so I lost my balance.

They began to lift me.

I was pulled up by two soldiers, one each side of me. 

The cross arm rocked, tilted, with me attached. I thought they would drop me for added entertainment. The ropes groaned. My body sagged from the nails. I could feel the full weight of myself tearing against the metal in my wrists. My shoulders screamed. My chest burned. The crown of my head pounded as blood drained downward.

There was a notch in the upright pole where the cross beam was dropped into. 

When the cross arm dropped into its socket, the jolt tore a cry from my lungs.

The shock pulled my arms near from their sockets. My body dropped — and with it, my nakedness swung fully into view again. 

Exposed now not just in distance but height. 

Everyone could see. Everything.

Then came the legs.

They lifted my knees, bending them slightly, pulling them apart so I was spread open. 

They placed my left foot flat on the side of the left side of the upright. This twisted my leg in my hip socket to an extreme angle. 

Another soldier picked up a nail and hammer and proceed to strike. 

The bone cracked again. I howled and twisted. The pain was as bad as my wrists being affixed. This time I couldn’t control myself and shit. It was diarrhoea that was expelled from my backside. I really did not care as I was in too much pain. It took over my world, for a moment I forgot about the crowd, the soldiers, my upcoming death - the pain was my world, my only world. 

They lifted the right leg and they nailed in the same manner. The ropes holding by arms were then released so that I just hanging from the four fixings. 

The pain wasn’t just in the feet - it radiated up my spine, through my groin, across my ribs. I felt my bladder release again. Warm urine ran down my thigh, over my genitals, down the cross. More laughter.

A voice in the crowd shouted, “Look! He wets himself like a baby girl!”

Someone else added, “He pissed on Rome and now pisses on himself.”